The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
What Amazon Gets Right About Onboarding (That Your Church Might Miss)
Amazon's precision-focused onboarding process offers four powerful lessons for churches that frequently welcome new team members with vague expectations and minimal guidance. By implementing these key principles, church leaders can transform chaotic first days into strategic foundations for staff success.
• Emphasize clarity over chaos by creating detailed first-week schedules and assigning onboarding buddies
• Develop systems over saviors with standardized processes including checklists and 30-day roadmaps
• Implement early feedback loops through weekly one-on-ones during the first 30-60 days
• Balance mission and mechanics by teaching both why ministry matters and how to contribute effectively
• Recognize that intentional onboarding demonstrates value to new team members from day one
If you're onboarding new staff soon and want help getting it right, reach out to me at podcast@chemistrystaffing.com. We have team members who can help implement either a one-off onboarding plan or an organizational system for all new employees.
Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com
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Today on the podcast, we're going to take a look at Amazon yes, Amazon and what they might have to teach your church and all of us about onboarding new staff.
Speaker 1:So, while you're handing out the keys and a staff handbook from 2006 and hoping your new hires figure things out on their own with the limited input that you give them, Amazon is onboarding thousands of employees with absolutely laser precision and absolutely zero chaos. So what can we as churches learn from Amazon? Or a fulfillment setter? Stick around. This change might change how you think and hire forever, so that's a pretty big promise. I hope I can deliver today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hi there, Thanks for joining me. My name is Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom, and today we are going to look at how Amazon does what it does and what we can learn from it when we're onboarding new staff members at our church. Here's the first thing that I'd like to talk about is that Amazon really emphasizes clarity over chaos, and the power of a clear first day is top priority at Amazon. All right, so Amazon ensures that every employee knows exactly where to go, who they'll meet and what success looks like by the end of day one.
Speaker 1:If you ask yourself, when someone joins your church staff, did they really have the same clarity? I remember one church I worked at. The pastor hired a new youth pastor and set a start date. It was going to let's say it was June 1st. Okay, so on June 1st the new youth pastor shows up right At the church and the pastor's on vacation and the youth pastor comes to me. I'm the worship guy, I'm the only other guy in the office other than the secretary, and the secretary or the administrative assistant doesn't know anything because the pastor didn't tell her anything. So the new youth pastor on his very first day, in his very first five minutes, says who do I talk to? Where's my office? He didn't have an office because the pastor forgot to set up an office or even tell the administrative assistant where his office would be. So that might be a really harsh reality, but I swear it's the truth.
Speaker 1:Churches often welcome new team members with vague expectations and an ask me, ask me anything, If you need anything, let me know. That kind of a mindset. Now, that's not onboarding, Okay, that's survival mode, All right. So what the fix needs to be, I think, is that you need to build a detailed first week schedule. You need to assign a buddy, somebody that can watch out and take, give advice and kind of walk along that new employee for their first week and make sure that every new hire knows exactly what winning looks like early on. Okay, so that's the first thing that Amazon does really well that I wish we could learn from in churches and as we work with churches, we try to work with them to implement a plan like this an onboarding plan for the very first day, the very first week and the very first month and six months actually. So clarity over chaos. The power of a clear first day is absolutely key and Amazon does that really well.
Speaker 1:Second thing I think that Amazon does really well is that they do systems over saviors All right. So don't rely on superstars. Amazon doesn't need a superstar manager to make onboarding work. Their system does all the heavy lifting and too many churches honestly rely on one person, usually the senior pastor or the executive pastor, to kind of unload or onboard by osmosis. That's just a recipe for inconsistency.
Speaker 1:So here's what you need to do you need to create a standardized process, and this is going to take some organization, Okay, and it's going to take a little bit of time but, believe me, it pays off in not only making that first week really valuable and flow really well for that employee, but it's going to make the employee, the new staff member, feel really valued. So create some standardized processes. Now, this is going to include some onboarding checklists and some digital forms. For sure, probably a 30-day roadmap. But when you have a system, your system's going to do the work, not your schedule. Okay, that is just something. I think that's really important is make sure that you're prepared for them and make sure that you have a process that will work them through that first day, that first week, that first 30 days.
Speaker 1:And then, third thing that amazon does really is they have they do really well at feedback loops and check-ins. Okay, so amazon is going to check on the performance of every new employee really early and really often. Okay, why do they do that? Because Any kind of bad habits can start on day one and a lot of times it's not even the employee's fault. It's because they're not getting the orientation or the onboarding that they need. So churches often wait months to check in and then honestly and I've seen this because we talk to candidates all day, every day, resentment sets in or confusion sets in. So build some regular feedback loops, have weekly one-on-ones for the first 30 to 60 days, make space for questions, make space for clarity and for coaching.
Speaker 1:It may seem like micromanaging, but let me tell you it's not micromanaging, okay. That's just pure investing into your brand new staff member. All right, so we've gone over three. This is the fourth one and the last one and mission and mechanics is what I want to talk about. And Amazon teaches both what to do and why it matters. So they do training videos, they do mission stories, they do safety protocols, but all of those are aligned around Amazon's mission and the mechanics of how they carry things out.
Speaker 1:In churches, though, we often overlook or often overload with theology maybe, or maybe you skip right to just watch me and learn, or that's not how we do this. This is how we do this. Your onboarding must combine mission, which is a shortcut, for mission is why we do this work and mechanics how we do this work. Okay. So every new staff member should feel like they're joining something bigger and they need to be clear on how to contribute in the right way. All right, so onboarding in your onboarding process doesn't need to be Amazon-sized, okay, but it does need to be intentional and clear and consistent.
Speaker 1:And if you're not, if the employee shows up on day one and nobody's expecting them to be there and they have to even ask questions as to who to go see, that is just not a good impression at all. As you think about, maybe, how you were onboarded at your church or maybe how you've onboarded the last couple of employees, as you think about that, what's one thing that you think that you'll change in your onboarding process? What's one tweak that you can make to make it better? I'd love to hear your response and maybe you push back on this and say Todd, you're wrong man, we just need to fly by the seat of our pants here. I hope you don't say that, but I'd love to hear it. You can drop it in the comments you're watching on YouTube.
Speaker 1:If you're listening on the podcast, you can always send me an email. I'd love to hear from you. Read every comment. Send me an email at podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. And if you're onboarding new staff soon and you want a little bit of help to get it right, go ahead and reach out to me. You can do that just by sending an email. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I'd love to help you walk through that. We have people on our team that actually will help you implement either a one-off onboarding for a new staff member or an overall organizational onboarding for all new employees. So reach out to me podcast at chemistrystaffingcom if I can be any help whatsoever. All right, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today. We'll be back tomorrow right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Have a great day.
